Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
--Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Meanwhile the world goes on . . .
. . . is a kind of black hole in my imagination.
There’s too much gravity there. It sucks in all my attention. After that, I forget all the particulars of rocks and rain, trees, and rivers which follow.
Despair makes you wonder if you can go on. That’s why it is good to speak of it to someone, hear of theirs too.
And then you look at the trees, the pebbles of rain moving across the landscapes, and remember, with the poet’s help, that meanwhile, the world goes on.
Today, in despair, I look at a world allowing--again--the razing of cities.
That’s another kind of black hole.
I hope the world can go on.
I hope I can go on.
I hope we do not get sucked into a darkness from which not even poetry and nature can rescue us.